MACCLESFIELD
Is a pretty large and pleasant town, sheltering itself from eastern blasts by its vicinity to these high hills: it stands upon an eminence, and is famous for manufactures of silk twisting, mohair, making buttons, &c. The church is placed upon the edge of the hill. South is a large chapel of the ancient family of Rivers (Ripariis) another of the Leighs, where, for saying a small number of Ave-marys and Paternosters, we obtain 26,000 years and odd days of pardon: to such a degree of extravagance was the superstitious folly of our ancestors advanced!
Stockport is built on a hill of rock. The church is spacious. A place called the Castle-yard, walled in. The Tame, Mersey, and other rivers, meet here, falling from the Derbyshire hills: united they pass swiftly through a rocky channel under a bridge of a single arch, large and well turned: they cut themselves houses in the rock here, as at Nottingham. Sometimes the floods reach the top of the bridge.